West Bengal Vote Could Mean Double Trouble for Left

The first phase of state assembly elections in India’s eastern state of West Bengal that started Monday are vital for the Communist alliance which has ruled the state for almost 34 years and is again trying to hold its citadel.

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Voters queue up to cast their ballots in Siliguri during the first phase of state assembly elections in West Bengal on Monday.

The state’s government, the world’s oldest democratically-elected Communist administration, is being challenged by the Trinamool Congress party led by India’s Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee and the Congress party, which runs the coalition government in New Delhi.

A poor showing in the assembly elections in West Bengal might cost the Left parties not just at the state level but also the national level. At least four out of nine ministers belonging to the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which runs the governing alliance in West Bengal, are retiring in August from the Rajya Sabha, Parliament’s upper house, because their terms come to an end. They include senior leaders Sitaram Yechury and Brinda Karat. Presently, 12 out of 16 Rajya Sabha seats allocated to West Bengal belong to the Communist parties.

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The issue for the Left is that the elected members of state assemblies in India constitute the electoral college for sending representatives to the upper house of Parliament. So if the Left is thrashed in West Bengal, the replacements for the departing Left members of the Rajya Sabha may well be from the winning party.

“Our numbers might decline in Parliament if members are not re-elected,” S. Venkata Rao, senior member of Communist Party of India (Marxist) told India Real Time Monday.

The election in West Bengal is being held in six phases between April 18 and May 10.

If the Left from West Bengal loses some of its upper house seats, it will accelerate a decline already underway. Last year, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was relegated to fourth position in Rajya Sabha after its numbers slipped to 15 from 16. India’s ruling Congress party leads the Rajya Sabha tally with 71 members followed by opposition Bharatiya Janata Party with 50 members. The Bahujan Samaj Party, led by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, has 18 members.

The southern state of Kerala – where polling was held last week — has nine seats in the Rajya Sabha. Of those, six are occupied by Left parties. That tally, too, could diminish, depending on the results of Kerala’s state assembly elections. Voting there already has been completed, as it has in Tamil Nadu, the northeastern state of Assam and the union territory of Puducherry. All results will be released May 13.

Political analyst Kaberi Chakrabarty at Calcutta University says with the Communist administration in West Bengal facing a tough time, the voting “can be a critical verdict for the Left parties in terms of electoral numbers.”

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